


We Speak in Silence

by fathand



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (parentheses for all you americans), Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), The Iliad References, gratuitous use of brackets, it's not explicit at all but thought i'd tag it just in case, sorry i'm a pretentious classics student x
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21735670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathand/pseuds/fathand
Summary: When they get off the bus and step out into the dark of night, Aziraphale doesn’t let go of his hand. They stand by a lamppost as the bus trundles away, Crowley’s apartment building looming above them like a challenge. Picture this: flickering amber light; wet tarmac gleaming under Oxfords and snake-skin boots; soft-square fingers and cold-angle bones.Crowley invites Aziraphale back to his.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 44





	We Speak in Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first (completed) Good Omens fic!
> 
> An intriguing article about the origins of the phrase ‘every love story is a ghost story’ can be read [here](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/d-f-w-tracing-the-ghostly-origins-of-a-phrase).
> 
> The quote used from the Iliad is from book 24 and is perhaps my favourite scene in the epic. Something about shared grief and anger, forgiving another and being forgiven, all an act of healing. Something, something, something. Regardless, it makes my heart hurt.
> 
> Title is from 'Oxygen' by Willy Mason. ('We speak in silence every time our eyes meet.')

When they get off the bus and step out into the dark of night, Aziraphale doesn’t let go of his hand. They stand by a lamppost as the bus trundles away, Crowley’s apartment building looming above them like a challenge. Picture this: flickering amber light; wet tarmac gleaming under Oxfords and snake-skin boots; soft-square fingers and cold-angle bones. Crowley feels the ice of his marrow melt.

“My dear…”

“Should we, er,” Crowley says, awkwardness stuck in the gaps between his teeth. “Should we go up?” 

“Yes.” Quiet but sure. “Yes, please.”

Crowley thinks of how often he’s imagined this, feels the endless hours bubbling up at the back of his throat; champagne-gold floats up his sinuses, collecting behind his eyelids. Aziraphale tightens his grip, exhales into the night air and pulls Crowley forward: the demon’s heart beats outside his chest, beats wildly in an angel’s grasp.

Crowley doesn’t want his heart back; he wants it kept tight in these hands, thick fingers wrapped around the sighing muscle, settled close in a clean, pink palm. He wants to kiss them, those murderer’s hands that ripped this sodden thing from behind his ribs.

_I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before -  
I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son._

But Priam got the body back; Hector got the kleos, the glory. His city fell but he rose, his ashes in the mouth of every storyteller, that plume and shine of bronze and crunch of bone. And what has Crowley got from this?

They speak of the rage of a swift-footed man and his earsplitting, legbreaking grief. But what if he felt nothing at all? What if he abandoned himself, felt the numbing cold of the river like the lick of a heavy-breasted hound and the dog barked and barked and barked in his chest? A chest that had been split clean open even while he hid from the action, behind folds of cloth, silent in the heat and musk of a tent.

A man cannot live with a deadrock heart. He was doomed before the arrow ever took flight.

( _Keep my heart and squeeze it. Keep it beating with those killer’s healing hands._ )

But what now? Stairs underfoot, now corridor, now a doormat. Crowley is fumbling for keys, laughter sounding by his ear, champagne-gold in real time. 

“Let me.” Low, warm. Aziraphale pushes the door open (the lock clicks with a miracle). They step into the flat and the door shuts behind them. Empty-echo walls stare with watchful eyes, unseen but seeing. Crowley shudders, feels Aziraphale tense beside him. This haunted flat in Mayfair.

 _Every love story is a ghost story._ Yes, it is the ghost he lets himself love. Indulge in the scent that lingers. Imagine the brush of linen here, the milk-white, cotton-bright clean of him. Let this love fill him up; let this love spill out in the quiet of the morning, dawn breaks softly through the curtains, touches his skin with paper-starch light. Clean it up. _Demons don’t feel shame._ Don’t think about that. Just swallow the name on his tongue, wet and pink with betrayal.

But now the ghost is in his flat, moving away from Crowley and towards the kitchen.

“I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?”

“Uh, sure,” Crowley says, vowels sounding sandpaper rough against the roof of his mouth.

He follows the light, the pitter-patter footsteps, the promise of him. 

Aziraphale smiles, lifts the kettle to the sink and turns on the tap. He takes his time whilst Crowley fidgets, picks at his cuticles, this cool-cut body too sharp for his skin, itching to move, to touch and taste. Though pale against the dark tiles, Aziraphale is not a ghostly figure. There is strength in those arms, in the curve of the belly, the seasalt eyes and dandelion-fluff hair. Solidity, too, and wholeness. Crowley has never felt whole. 

(He had cut his hair, sulphur-thick and tangled. Took rusted shears and became his own Delilah, the final straw, the last dive. Hell had been one thing, but the blooming ache was too much: he had to kill it at the source, sever this reminder of all things divine, of hope and mercy and other lies. How was he to know he would be rewarded with an oyster? Taunted with the taste, with brine on a Cupid’s bow, the darting out of a tongue. All things divine.)

He watches Aziraphale take two black mugs from the cupboard, place a bag of Earl Grey in each, fold his hands against himself as he waits for the water to boil. _Maybe not all things are complicated._ Steam rises and the mugs are filled. Crowley opens the fridge and passes Aziraphale the milk.

They stand for a moment, side by side. The tea steeps. 

“I’m gonna-”

“May I-”

They pause. Aziraphale bites his lip. 

“You first, dear boy.”

Crowley opens his mouth but the words only rattle in his molars, a dullness quickening and seizing his nerves in fistfuls. _They say that what I am is simply what you are not. They say that I am only the absence of these good things, that I am nothing more than a dark spot, that I am bad. Why, then, do I know you like this? Why have you let me know you like this? Who am I, really? Do you know? Can you tell me? Please, tell me._ His lungs hold these curls of question marks; to breathe is to ask, to live is to be curious. 

There is an angel in his kitchen who is staring right at him, blue cutting like a blade through the silence and into yellow. Crowley doesn’t know when his glasses disappeared: was he wearing them when they got off the bus? When they came upstairs? It doesn’t matter. There is an angel in his kitchen and the blue is wounding, blinding, fear like noise in this noiseless room. Deafening. Crowley hears it as he always has. A blue that says _help me be brave. I am tired of cowering._

His slackjaw trembles and Aziraphale swallows audibly, a blue sound in the quiet. 

“Angel,” he breathes, tastes the word like a prayer. “Aziraphale.”

“Yes.” Crowley closes his eyes, listens. “Yes, my darling.”

The darkness quivers and dances. Movement, the soft swish of fabric, closer. _Yes. Forget the tea. Focus on me, on this. Here, now, us._

Crowley wants to crack him open like a walnut, parted lips and thighs. He wants it all. He wants so painfully; this, here, this hot ball at his very centre, twisted and mottled red, stained silk. It’s sickly and it’s gorgeous, and that’s the crux of it, right? He’s a contradiction, _they are_ , the two of them: a soft demon and his fussy angel. A fussy angel and his soft demon. They are not of Heaven and Hell; they belong only to each other. 

“My love,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley opens his eyes.

* * *

In primary school, you learn the primary colours. You learn blue and red and yellow; you learn pigments and hues and how to label the world. _He is blue. She is red. I am yellow. Are you yellow? Can we be yellow together?_ You learn how to mix and make anew (purple, orange, green); you learn the importance of explaining and showing (bluered, yellowred, yellowblue).

In the Garden, everything was green. Adam and Eve saw their world yellowblue. (Saw each other. Yellowblue.)

* * *

_Leonardo sketched a man, but I sketched an angel._ Years ago, Crowley had felt ink pour into his mouth, run like rivers through the creases of his face. The lines of Aziraphale are still carved into his torso, written along the arteries of his heart. _I will draw you into me. Let me stain you, let me leave my mark._ He remembers Italy, can feel the heat of it still, even here in dreary London. Leo let him talk, let him watch over his shoulder, point at each drawing and ask and ask and ask. _How does that work? How do you know that it’s right? What is that? And that? And this? What about this one over here?_

This heat, the slow build, the push and pull; Italy has nothing on this. Leo’s pitying words and patient hands are but a candle to the sunshine blaze of this angel. This pliable body (beneath, above, around, inside); this sacred heart. This intake of breath, the rise and fall blurred as one. _I will ask the questions. Tell me no lies._

_Hello?_ Crowley says now, eyes and teeth aching, his mouth a curve full of fresh-water pebbles. _Hello? For the love of all things hated and holy, will you please love me?_ He asks with his kisses, with his knees and his hips and his hands and his spine.

The answer is soft and sweet: _Yes._

And the answer is also a question: _Will you love me too?_

( _Yes, yes, yes. Always yes._ )

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that! I'm working on a fic set in post-war Berlin right now (should that be Berlins, plural?), but I genuinely have no idea when it'll be up. However, I am in no way done with these silly, lovesick man-shaped beings. I will be back. (Depending on whether you enjoyed the fic, that is either a threat or a promise.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Comments and kudos much appreciated :)


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